Still taking Photos!

Well, I wanted to give a quick update. The show in Florida is winding down. This is the last week of the Winter Equestrian Festival. It has been a fun event, but you can see that the economy has taken a toll on the show. Still it was amazing to see the amount of people who work in the industry that still have work. It is a good thing!

Beezie Madden, who is one of the world top riders from New York (picture above), was one of the shows highlights. Many of the top riders from world have been present week in and week out.

Last Saturday Night was the end of the big money events. It was $400 K up for grabs. The winner took home about $180 K. Not bad for a night's....... (not really) work!

It has been fun to watch and see all these world class riders compete this past year. There have been many, outstanding photo op's, You can see some of the shots that I took this season on the Palm Beach Post Web Site.

Well, a few more days to go.... the last week, I guess you have to make hay when the sun shines!

Off To My Other Job

In light of these tough financial times for me and the rest of the world, I have had to pick up a second job. I have been moon lighting as a photographer, photographing the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Florida. It is kinda ironic when you see the amount of money that is spent on horses and the equine industry when you are there, and to know that the rest of the world is in financial crisis.

The show started in the first week of January and ends at the end of March. The top riders in the world are here to test their skills at jumping the highest jumps the fastest. It is quite an exciting sport to watch. In addition to the best riders in the world, the rich and famous are here to try their skills as well. Bruce Springsteen's daughter, John Mellencamp's daughter, Madonna, as well as many others have been through here to compete with their steeds. Lou Dobb's daughter, Hillary and Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg's daughter Georgina, are a couple of the top riders for the US equestrian team.

So with one more week to go, I am a bit distracted from IT, trying to make the ends meet. This will be one of the top weekends, with the finals of the $400,000 Fidelity Consulting Classic.

I am off to see the rich and famous, maybe I will get lucky and someone will want to hire me!

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Who is Running the Show?

I have read several articles lately regarding the state of our National cybersecurity posture. In eWeek Magazine this week, there is an article by Matt Hines, "Short Lived Cyber Czars" and in InformationWeek, "Quick Takes" this weeks, "Leadership Needed". Both articles discuss the lack of authority or funding that Cyber Czar in this position has.

It seems that there are several issues responsible for our lack of a leader for this position and a lack of a role the department should take in structuring and enforcing a National Cyber Security policy .

There is a real and ongoing cyberwar against the United States that is unacknowledged and there is not a leader to take on the charge. There is the role of the Cyber Czar, however this position lies deep within the Department of Homeland Security, and has little or no authority. In addition, no one wants the position because the position receives no funding.

Rod Beckstrom, recently resigned the position after only one year, because he said that the department is so far removed from the main stream that there is a lack of influence to get anything done. In addition to lack of authority, there are issues with the NSA and who should really be running the show. To top it all off, the Cyber Czar only received five weeks of funding for his five person team.

I think that we should really move our country's cypersecurity initiative to the front burner where it belongs.Without a Federal CIO in place, no one department has taken the reins to coordinate efforts to safeguard our national security from the ongoing cyberwar. In addition, should this be run by the civilian effort or by the military effort? There are several views there but, the issue still remains that there is no one doing it today. The NSA has become the "de facto" leader on our defense, but is that really where the authority should reside?

It's the Same Old Story

Here we go again... Back in the beginning of March I write about the role of the new FED CIO and some of the things that might be considered while holding this position. By the end of that week the position was filled, and Vivek Kundra held the position. That is, until it was released that his former office was being investigated for fraud and theft.

According to an article in InfomationWeek, "White House CIO On Leave Amid Scandal At D.C. Technology Office", the CSO of D.C. Technology office was signing off on bills to the city for quipment that was not delivered, and for consultants that never worked.

Although the federal officials do not feel that Kundra was involved, he is definetly in a different light then when he was hired. I am sure that there are enough distractions without having to be involved with a federal investigation.

So I guess we will wait and see how this all pans out. Will we have a new CIO or will we have go to plan "b"?

Problem with a Mac....Solved!

Today is Friday and I will try to keep it short. I know, I have a great deal to do today!!! I am sure you do as well.......

You may have read yesterdays Blog, I was having problems with my Mac's hard drive. It seemed as soon as I loaded Apple's Aperture Photo editing software and loaded my pictures into it my hard drive became full. The funny thing was, it was only claiming to use up 9 Gig's of space. I could not figure it out. I had copied an image of the folder to my external drive and it was showing almost 70 Gig's. I figured that the version I had on my laptop was cleaner though and therefore only was 9 gig in size.

Well, in order to keep up with all the massive amounts of storage I am consuming, almost 3 Terabytes now, I purchased a external portable drive, to house only my photo library, to get it off my laptop.

Once I got home yesterday afternoon, I transferred the 9 Gig Aperture library off my laptop to my new 380 Gig external drive. And low and behold, I freed up over 50 Gig on my laptop!!!!!

Okay, how is this explained? On the laptop, I have no space, but the folder shows only 9 Gig, when I look at the folder on the external drive it shows it is 52 Gig's used. I am not sure the reason for this discrepancy. The only reason I can surmise is that because my drive was so full, the amount of data could not accurately be determined.

Oh well, it's working great now!!

Have a Happy Friday and a great weekend!!

Problems with a Mac.. Believe it or Not..... YES

It all started about the end of last year. I purchased a new Apple software program called Aperture. The program is a high end photo editing software package that competes with Photoshop but costs about a third.

If you have read "Secure or Not Secure", over the last few weeks you know I have had problems with disk space on my Mac. I purchased a program that identifies duplicate files called dupeGuru, by Hardcoded Software, which seemed to work well. The problem is I still don't have any more disk space now that I have eliminated, about 30,000 pictures. Surely that would do it!!

Well it hasn't, so I am doing what every conscientious IT Manager would do, I am looking for garbage files I can get rid of. So far, I have moved my photo library off my hard drive, now my iTunes Library, and I am not sure what is next.

I have purchased almost two T's of external storage and still my data goes up! I think there is more going on here then I am aware of.

If someone knows what is eating my disk space...... Please let me know!

Off to Trash some more files................

IPS Debate....... No Question About it!

I just got the new issue of SC Magazine for March 2009. In it there is a debate between Alan Shimel of StillSecure and John Viega of Stonewall Software, "Debate >> Small and medium business should deploy and intrusion prevention system". The debate focuses on the value or ROI for IPS in the SMB market.

I could not disagree more with John's position. Basically he is saying, because people do not know how to manage the environment, it should not be considered for their environment. He does have valid points though, that IPS does and can produce thousands of alerts a day, which can be overwhelming. Also, he states that the MSSP market is a $1.3 billion market.

That being said, I would advocate, YES you should have IPS, but you should not try to manage it unless A) you know what you are doing, and B) you have the time to manage it. These are the two biggest factors facing the success of IPS in the SMB space.

Who has the time? With everyone wearing many hats these days, no one has time to be strategic anymore, either they are recationary or tactical, and with IPS that does not cut it. If you find yourself in this predicament, consider using a good MSSP to provide the service for you. StillSecures ProtectPoint Services are not only cost effective, they have the experts running the service for you. So the thousands of alerts that you are looking at can be properly handled by the Experts. Alerts that need to ne acted on can be while those that are false can be managed.

Check out the ProtectPoint solution by StillSecure, if it looks like it might work, dr0p me a line, I can get you to scoop really fast!!! We have a connection for you!

Till next time...............